Web Terminology

Access Provider
The company that provides you with Internet access and, in some cases, an online account on their computer system.

Active Window
The top or front window in a multiple window environment.  Example: you open a web page and click on a link which takes you to another site, this site may open in a new browser window making it the 'active window' on top.  The first web page is still open behind the 'active window'.

Administrative Contact
The administrative contact is an individual authorized to interact with the registrar on behalf of the domain name registrant. The administrative contact should be able to answer non-technical questions about the domain name's registration and the domain name registrant. It is strongly recommended that the administrative contact be the registrant or someone from the registrant's organization.

AJAX: Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. AJAX has been referred to as an architecture and not a technology.  An example of using a combination of technologies (Javascript and XML) that allows the content of a web page to be updated or changed without the entire page being reloaded.

Application
Software that lets users do relatively complex tasks, as well as create and modify documents. Common application types include word processors, spreadsheets, database managers, and presentation graphics programs.

Bandwidth
The capacity of the transmission medium stated in bits per second or as a frequency. The bandwidth of optical fiber is in the gigabit or billion bits per second range, while ethernet coaxial cable is in the megabit or million bits per second range.

Billing Contact
The billing contact is the person designated to receive the invoice for domain name registration and re-registration fees. The billing contact should be in a position to ensure prompt payment of fees. .Biz
Top-level domain intended for the business community.

bps
Bits Per Second is the unit used for measuring line speed, the number of information units transmitted per second.

Browser
A program that enables you to access information on the Internet through the World Wide Web. The browser gives some means of viewing (or listening to) the contents of pages and of navigating from one page to another. 

Bug
A mistake, or unexpected occurrence, in a piece of software or in a piece of hardware.  Developers fix bugs.

Byte
The amount of memory needed to store one character such as a letter or a number.  Equal to 8 bits of digital information. The standard measurement unit of a file size. One character of information, usually eight bits wide.

Cache
An area of RAM reserved for data recently read from disk, which allows the processor to quickly retrieve it if it's needed again.

Caching
A process in which frequently accessed data is kept on hand, rather than constantly being from the place where it is stored.

CD-ROM
Compact Disk, Read-Only Memory. A type of storage device that looks just like an audio CD and stores as much data as a large hard disk (600MB), making it a popular means of distributing fonts, photos, electronic encyclopedias, games, and multimedia offerings. As the name indicates, however, you can't save or change files on a CD-ROM, only read them.

ccTLD
Country code Top Level Domain. Also referred to as non-US ISO country codes. Some countries register all domains at the top level, e.g. Germany (.de) and Norway, while others create additional structure with Second Level domains (2LDs) such as .co.nz (New Zealand), .co.jp (Japan), .com.tw (Taiwan).

Clipboard
An area used to temporarily store cut or copied information. The Clipboard can store text, graphics, objects, and other data. The Clipboard contents are erased when new information is placed on the Clipboard or when the computer is shut down.

CMS
Content Management System/Software/Solution - A password protected website administration system that allows website content or images to be updated online anytime from the CMS database, without the need for technical expertise.  The page editing functionality in a CMS has a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) where you are able to execute these actions plus many more tasks.

Compression
The reduction in size of an image file.

Cookies
A file sent to a web browser by a web server that is used to record ones activities.

CPU
Central Processing Unit; the brains of the computer. The CPU interprets and executes the actual computing tasks.

Crash
A problem (often caused by a bug) that causes a program, or the entire operating system, to unexpectedly stop working.

Cyberspace
A term used to refer to the electronic universe of information available through the Internet.

Database
A file created by a database manager that contains a collection of information organized into records, each of which contains labelled categories (called fields).

Decompression
The expansion of compressed image files.

Dial-up line
A communication connection from your computer to a host computer over standard phone lines. Unlike a dedicated line, you must dial the host computer in order to establish a connection.

Dialog box
A window that displays additional options or questions when a command is chosen.

Digital
Data or voltages consisting of discrete steps or levels, as opposed to continuously variable analog data.

Direct connection
A permanent communication connection between your computer system (either a single CPU or a LAN) and the Internet. This is also called a leased line connection because you are leasing the telephone connection from the phone company.

Disk Defragmenter
Arranges the blocks of information for a file into adjacent blocks on your hard drive, which may significantly improve the file access times.

DNS
A distributed database of information that is used to translate domain names, which are easy for humans to remember and use, into Internet Protocol (IP) numbers, which are what computers need to find each other on the Internet.
People working on computers around the globe maintain their specific portion of this database, and the data held in each portion of the database is made available to all computers and users on the Internet.
The DNS comprises computers, data files, software, and people working together.

Domain Examples
ccTLD Country Code Top Level Domain (.de = Germany, .ca = Canada)
rTLD Restricted Top Level Domain (.gov = government, . = museum)
gTLD Generic Top Level Domain (.biz = business community, .edu = education)
2LD 2nd Level Domain (.co.nz = New Zealand, .com.au = Australia)

.aero
Sponsored top-level domain. Reserved for members of the aviation community.
.com
Companies Anyone - Unrestricted. Generic top-level domain. The most commonly used TLD on the Web.
.com.au
Australian registered companies only.
.coop
Restricted top-level domain. Reserved for cooperative businesses.
.edu
Generic, restricted top-level domain. Available exclusively to degree-granting educational institutions of higher education that are accredited by one of the six U.S. regional accrediting agencies.  Educational Institutions 4 Year Universities only.
.gov
Government Agcy's Restricted.
.info
Generic top-level domain. Unrestricted, but generally used for informative purposes.
.mil 
Agencies Restricted US Military. Generic top-level domain operated exclusively by the United States Military.
.museum
Generic top-level domain reserved for museums.
.name
Generic top-level domain reserved exclusively for individuals.
.net
Providers Anyone - Unrestricted. Generic top-level domain. Unrestricted, but primarily used by Internet service providers (ISPs). 
.org
Not-for-profit organizations Anyone - Unrestricted. Generic top-level domain. Unrestricted, but mainly used by nonprofit organizations.
.pro
Soon-to-be-activated generic top-level domain. Once established, the domain will be available exclusively for certified professionals, such as accountants, lawyers and physicians.
.us
Country-code top-level domain. Available exclusively for residents of the United States and its territories.
.ws
The Country-Code Top Level Domain for Western Samoa, but marketed for general use with the suggestion that it stands for "web site".

Domain Name
In short, a domain name is nothing more than an alias for a numeric web address. Each web site on the internet has a numeric address that functions like coordinates on a map. Instead of pointing to a geographic location on earth, these numeric addresses, called IP addresses, point to a graphical location on the Internet. Computers have no problems with locating and remembering numeric addresses. In contrast, most humans have trouble remembering long, complicated sequences of numbers. So, to make surfing the web easier, the domain name system was invented. This system allows people to use easy to remember names for web sites instead of those number sequences.

Domain Name Server
A computer that converts host names, such as lynbayliss.com to its corresponding IP Address, such as 202.89.153.81.  An SDSU computer provides this service any time mail is sent or received and permits users to use TELNET and FTP between SDSU and other sites.

Download
To retrieve a file from another computer using a modem.

Driver
A piece of software that tells the computer how to operate an external device, such as a printer, hard disk, CD-ROM drive, or scanner. For instance, you can't print unless you have a printer driver. Hard disk drivers are invisible files that are loaded into memory when you start the computer, while scanner drivers are usually plug-ins accessed from within a particular application.

Dump
Back-up of data.

EJB
EJB or Enterprise Java Beans is a component architecture for the development and deployment of object-oriented, distributed, enterprise-level applications. Applications written using the Enterprise JavaBeans architecture are scalable, transactional, and multi-user and secure. The enterprise bean is a component that implements a business task or business entity and is of two types- entity bean or a session bean.


Fully-qualified domain name
A fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) is that portion of an Internet Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that fully identifies the server program that an Internet request is addressed to. The FQDN includes the top-level domain name, the second-level domain name and any other levels. An FQDN should be sufficient to determine a unique Internet address for any host on the Internet. The prefix "http://" added to the fully-qualified domain name completes the URL.


FTP
File Transfer Protocol. The Internet engineering standard for transferring files from one computer to another, i.e. from a web creator's computer files to the virtual server or vice versa. Such a transfer is made via a special FTP software program such as WS_FTP or CuteFTP. There are many Internet sites that have established publicly accessible repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP, by logging in using the account name anonymous, thus these sites are called anonymous ftp servers.

gTLD
Generic Top Level Domain. In the US, gTLDs used to describe organizational and political structures and are usually given three-letter names. Over the past few years, a number of these gTLDs have become "unrestricted", i.e. anyone can register a domain in that gTLD. You do not even have to reside in the US or be a business entity. For domains outside the US, two-letter ISO (International Organization For Standardization) country codes are used.

HTML
Documents on the World Wide Web are written in a simple "markup language" called HTML, which stands for HyperText Markup Language. HTML looks a lot like old-fashioned typesetting code, where you surround a block of text with codes that indicate how it should appear, additionally; in HTML you can specify that a block of text, or a word, is linked to another file on the Internet. HTML files are meant to be viewed using a browser, such as Netscape or Internet Explorer.

HTTP
HyperText Transfer Protocol. The protocol for moving hypertext files across the Internet. Requires a HTTP client program on one end, and an HTTP server program on the other end. HTTP is the most important protocol used in the World Wide Web (WWW).

Hypertext
Term coined by Ted Nelson around 1965 for a collection of documents containing cross-references or "links" which, with the aid of an interactive browser program, allow the reader to move easily from one document to another.

IANA
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority The function that currently oversees registration for various Internet Protocol parameters, such as port numbers, protocol and enterprise numbers, options, codes, and types. The IANA function is currently located at the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California in Marina del Rey, CA.

ICANN
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN is the new non-profit corporation that is assuming responsibility from the U.S. Government for coordinating certain Internet technical functions, including the management of Internet domain name system. More information about ICANN can be found at their web site, which is posted at: http://www.icann.org.

IP Address
Every machine that is on the Internet has a unique IP number - if a machine does not have an IP number, it is not really on the Internet. Most machines also have one or more domain names that are easier for people to remember.
IP addresses are numerical, often 32-bit addresses that are expressed as four numbers between 0 and 255, separated by periods, for example: 216.168.224.69

ISP (Internet Service Provider)
Internet Service Provider. While rather a generic term, ISP generally refers to a person, organization, or company that allows its users access to the Internet. In addition to Internet access, many ISPs provide other services such as web hosting, DNS and other services.

Nameserver
Sometimes called a "host." A computer (server) that has both the software and the data (zone files) needed to resolve domain names to Internet Protocol (IP) numbers. Domain names must be programmed into a minimum of two nameservers hosted on separate networks.

NIC
Generally, any office that handles information for a network. The most famous of these on the Internet is the InterNIC, which is where new domain names are registered.

Parking
When a registered domain is parked, the domain is reserved but remains inactive. A temporary Web page is displayed until the site is unparked � or activated. Domain name parking is often used by registrants who do not yet have a hosting provider or who haven't yet built a site for the domain.

PSTN
Public Switched Telephone Network. The traditional, wired telephone network.  Also know as Plain Old Telephone System, this refers to the world's collection of interconnected public telephone networks designed primarily for voice traffic.

Registrant
The individual or organization that registers a specific domain name. This individual or organization holds the right to use that specific domain name for a specified period of time, provided certain conditions are met and the registration (NIC) fees are paid. This person or organization is the "legal entity" bound by the terms of all applicable domain registration Service Agreements.

Registrar
An entity with a direct contractual relationship with, and special access to, a registry, that inserts records on behalf of others.

Click here for The Accredited Registrar Directory which is comprised of companies accredited as registrars by ICANN and currently operational.

The information that appears for each registrar, including the referral web address and contact information, has been provided by each individual registrar.

Registry
A database associating DNS information with some person, legal entity, operational entity, or other reference. 

rTLD
Restricted top-level domain name. A top-level domain, such as .biz, .gov, .museum, .name, and .pro, that is only available to registrants who meet certain criteria.

Search Engines
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system, ie. on the World Wide Web (www), inside a corporate or proprietary network, or in a personal computer.
The search engine allows you to ask for content meeting specific criteria (typically those containing a given word or phrase) and retrieves a list of items that match those criteria. This list is often sorted with respect to some measure of relevance of the results. Search engines use regularly updated indexes to operate quickly and efficiently.

Without further qualification, search engine usually refers to a Web search engine, which searches for information on the public Web. Other kinds of search engine are enterprise search engines, which search on intranets, personal search engines, and mobile search engines. Different selection and relevance criteria may apply in different environments, or for different uses.

New Zealand Top Search Engines - January 2007

1. www.google.com (.co.nz)

2. www.yahoo.com (au.yahoo)

3. www.msn.co.nz  (xtramsn)